What is a shadow to be judged aside the sun,
As the light of the world and the unearthly gloom,
That wakes the child in the forenoon,
And what keeps him awake with monsters and doom,

As our searing star falls from her pedestal so sound,
So do the creatures of nighttime ascend from their lares of hiding,
And take to the firmament or amble across the ground,
With their prey crying and noisily buzzing,

Is the obscure so fuliginous,
That the inhabitants of light see it as ominous or foreboding,
To where the shade of the trees looks horrendous,
And the moon in the sky is seen as threatening,

To the beasts of the domain of dark blue and purple,
Nothing can surpass their own shaded kindle.